Crackdown Here Continues, More Students Disciplined

The Bernhardt administration has denied appeals of disciplinary actions that followed a modest demonstration in front of the Ansin Building on Feb. 21 , in which  student demonstrators picketed on Tremont Street and pasted the building facade with easily removed stickers showing the renewed demands of the Students for Justice in Palestine.

Disciplinary letters were sent out sporadically in the weeks that followed, sentencing students to academic probation and fines of up to $150. According to individuals from this group who have spoken with us, and who will remain anonymous, their appeals to those disciplinary actions were denied. They have shared with us accounts of the ways in which they were targeted and charged, although certain details about their hearings will not be revealed, in order to protect their identity. 

During the protest, a college official stood outside the building, photographing the demonstrators, most of whom wore scarves over their faces. The administrator, Christie Anglade, vice president of Student Affairs, has since tried to match her photos with the faces of students called into disciplinary meetings for questioning, according to students involved. 

The continuing discipline and the attempts to “out” protesters fly in the face of a 96–80 vote by the Emerson Faculty Assembly calling for an end to disciplinary action for nonviolent demonstrations. These actions also risk exposing students to the Trump Administration’s campaign to deport foreign-born protesters, with or without legal authority.  

"I would address all their evidence in the first five minutes and continue to be asked the same questions about what I did that day and if I was at the protest for another half hour,” recounted one student. Several more said it was clear that Emerson College is interested not in due process, or in hearing the truth, but in profiling students associated with pro-Palestinian activism and targeting Emerson community leaders such as resident assistants.

Anglade’s photos and eyewitness accounts, ECPD police testimony, and tap desk records were all used as evidence against the students who received disciplinary letters. 

Although testimony from ECPD reportedly stated that “observational charges” would include vandalism, endangering the public, disturbing the peace, and loitering, students accused of protesting were not hit with these criminal charges or city violations. They are being charged instead with violating school policies such as not booking the street for the protest and putting stickers on walls without permission.

A consistent factor in the hearings was apparently Anglade’s assertion that she recognized the students, many of whom say they have never  met or even seen her in person before. Students contend that several pieces of bad evidence were used in their hearings. Photos containing a demonstrably different individual and irrelevant tap desk records continued to be used against students even after they were contested, the students said.

Conversely, administrators have both indirectly and directly accused students of lying when they insisted they were not at the protest, demanding that they show clear evidence of being at a different location—in other words, requiring them to prove their innocence in the face of the administration’s presumption of their guilt. Reportedly,  the Office of Community Standards and its officers act as both prosecutor and judge, presenting evidence against the accused students and then sanctioning them without due process.

Those put on academic probation have been effectively silenced by the administration. If confronted with other presumed infractions, they could face serious consequences, including restrictions on their activities at Emerson, suspension, or even expulsion. Resident assistants may lose their housing privileges.